Aleksander Sołżenicyn cytaty (150 cytatów, strona 4)

o Janie Pawle II.
Źródło: wywiad dla BBC, 1979, cyt. za: Bernard Lecomte, Tajemnice Watykanu, Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 2010, ISBN 9788324013890, tłum. Michał Romanek, s. 233.

O tajemnicy

„Wszechświat ma właśnie tyle punktów centralnych, ile w nim żywych istot. Każdy z nas – jest osią świata i świat rozpada się na kawałki, gdy człowiek słyszy syknięcie: „Jesteście aresztowani!””

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

O świecie , O wszechświecie

„Cnocie, wychłostanej i mizernej, wolno już teraz wejść w swoich łachmanach i zająć miejsce w kącie, byleby tylko siedziała cicho.”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

„Ustrój, jaki nami rządzi, to połączenie starej nomenklatury, rekinów finansjery, fałszywych demokratów i KGB. Tego nie mogę nazwać demokracją – to wstrętna, nie mająca precedensu w historii hybryda, o której nie wiadomo, w jakim kierunku będzie się rozwijać… [ale] jeśli ten sojusz zwycięży, będą nas eksploatować nie przez 70, ale przez 170 lat.”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

o Rosji z początku lat dziewięćdziesiątych.
Źródło: Ryszard Kapuściński, Imperium, Czytelnik, 1993, s. 6.

O demokracji , O historii

„W okresie dyktatury, otoczeni ze wszystkich stron wrogami, przejawialiśmy niekiedy zbytnią miękkość, przesadną łagodność”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

„System u nas panujący (…) żąda od nas pełnego oddania własnej duszy…”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Źródło: Na wozwratie dychanija i soznanija

O duszy

„Gdy Pawła Nikołajewicza nic w pokoju nie wprawiało w rozdrażnienie, gdy gnębiący go smutek zmniejszał się do zwykłych ludzkich rozmiarów – generał stawał sobie przy oknie i patrząc na park nucił cicho, a głos miał miły: „Uśnij serce, niech sen tu zagości. Nie budź mnie ani tego co było…” I bądź tu mądry! – mógł być najmilszym gościem w każdym salonie! A ileż zbiorowych mogił więźniarskich zostawił wzdłuż torów, które budował!”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

O smutku , O pokoju , O snach , Serce

„Prawdziwy mędrzec zadowala się małym.”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn książka Oddział chorych na raka

Oddział chorych na raka

„Żyj z poczuciem spokojnej wyższości nad życiem, nie bój się biedy, nie żałuj straconego szczęścia, przecież i tak – ani goryczy do dna, ani słodyczy do pełna. Już dosyć tego, że nie marzniesz, że głód i pragnienie nie rwą ci wnętrzności. Jeśli masz nieprzetrącony kręgosłup, jeśli obie nogi jeszcze chodzą, obie ręce się ruszają, oboje oczu widzi, a oboje uszu słyszy – to komu jeszcze tu zazdrościć? Po co? Zawiść zżera w końcu samego zawistnika. Przetrzyj oczy – przywróć czystość sercu – i najwyżej sobie ceń tych, którzy ci dobrze życzą. Nie krzywdź ich, nie obrażaj, z nikim z nich nie rozstawaj się w gniewie, toć nie wiadomo czy to nie ostatni twój uczynek przed aresztowaniem i czy nie taki twój obraz zostanie w ich pamięci!”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

O głodzie , Obraz , Serce

„I nic w trakcie rewizji nie może być uznane za drobiazg!”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

„Ania Lehtonen w obozie Ortau straciła uczucie dla swego ukochanego w ciągu 20 minut, gdy strażnik prowadził ich do karceru, a chłopak skomlał uniżenie o łaskę.”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

O emocjach , Chłopak

„Oto czym jest aresztowanie: to blask oślepiający i cios, które sprawiają, że teraźniejszość nagle staje się przeszłością, zaś to, co niemożliwe, zaczyna być pełnoprawną codziennością.”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

O przeszłości

„Bo gdy nam źle - nie wstydzimy się Boga. Wstydzimy się go tylko wtedy, gdy nam dobrze.”

Aleksander Sołżenicyn

Archipelag Gułag

O Bogu

Aleksander Sołżenicyn: Cytaty po angielsku

“Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In his interview with Joseph Pearce. " An Interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0172.html." St. Austin Review 2 no. 2 (February, 2003).
Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)

“The disappearance of nations would impoverish us no less than if all peoples were made alike, with one character, one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, they are its generalized personalities: the smallest of them has its own particular colors, and embodies a particular facet of God's design.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Harvard University address (1978)

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago (1973).

“I am of course confident that I will fulfil my tasks as a writer in all circumstances — from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death. But may it be that repeated lessons will finally teach us not to stop the writer’s pen during his lifetime? At no time has this ennobled our history.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Open letter to the Fourth Soviet Writers’ Congress (16 May 1967); as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970).

“From time immemorial man has been made in such a way that his vision of the world, so long as it has not been instilled under hypnosis, his motivations and scale of values, his actions and intentions are determined by his personal and group experience of life.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nobel lecture (1970)

“A work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nobel lecture (1970)

“Call no day happy 'til it is done; call no man happy til he is dead.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka The Oak and the Calf

Solzhenitsyn here seems to be paraphrasing Sophocles who expresses similar ideas in Oedipus Rex. This is also a direct reference to Plutarch's line, "call no man fortunate until he is dead," from his "Parallel Lives".
The Oak and the Calf (1975)

“A man should build a house with his own hands before he calls himself an engineer.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

“A man with two trades to his credit can easily learn another ten.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

“Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevent independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life. There is a dangerous tendency to form a herd, shutting off successful development.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Harvard University address (1978)

“Ivanov came to quite the same conclusion, though life supplied him with quite different material to think about. He puts it like this: many lives have a mystical sense, but not everyone reads it right; more often than not it is given to us in cryptic form, and when we fail to decipher it we despair because our lives seem meaningless… the secret of a great life is often a man’s success in deciphering the mysterious symbols vouchsafed to him, understanding them, and so learning to walk in the true path.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka The Oak and the Calf

The Oak and the Calf (1975)

“There is a word very commonly used these days: "anti-communism." It's a very stupid word, badly put together. It makes it appear as though communism were something original, something basic, something fundamental. Therefore, it is taken as the point of departure, and anti-communism is defined in relation to communism. Here is why I say that this word was poorly selected, that it was put together by people who do not understand etymology: the primary, the eternal concept is humanity. And communism is anti-humanity. Whoever says "anti-communism" is saying, in effect, anti-anti-humanity. A poor construction. So we should say: that which is against communism is for humanity. Not to accept, to reject this inhuman Communist ideology is simply to be a human being. It isn't being a member of a party.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Speech in Washington D.C., June 30, 1975; Solzhenitsyn: The Voice of Freedom http://www.archive.org/details/SolzhenitsynTheVoiceOfFreedom, p. 30.

“Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Harvard University address (1978)

“I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less … than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka The Oak and the Calf

The Oak and the Calf (1975)

“However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U. S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear?”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Harvard University address (1978)

“Proverbs about truth are well-loved in Russian. They give steady and sometimes striking expression to the not inconsiderable harsh national experience: ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD.
And it is here, on an imaginary fantasy, a breach of the principle of the conservation of mass and energy, that I base both my own activity and my appeal to the writers of the whole world.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nobel lecture (1970)

“One artist sees himself as the creator of an independent spiritual world; he hoists onto his shoulders the task of creating this world, of peopling it and of bearing the all-embracing responsibility for it; but he crumples beneath it, for a mortal genius is not capable of bearing such a burden. Just as man in general, having declared himself the centre of existence, has not succeeded in creating a balanced spiritual system. And if misfortune overtakes him, he casts the blame upon the age-long disharmony of the world, upon the complexity of today's ruptured soul, or upon the stupidity of the public.
Another artist, recognizing a higher power above, gladly works as a humble apprentice beneath God's heaven; then, however, his responsbility for everything that is written or drawn, for the souls which perceive his work, is more exacting than ever. But, in return, it is not he who has created this world, not he who directs it, there is no doubt as to its foundations; the artist has merely to be more keenly aware than others of the harmony of the world, of the beauty and ugliness of the human contribution to it, and to communicate this acutely to his fellow-men. And in misfortune, and even at the depths of existence — in destitution, in prison, in sickness — his sense of stable harmony never deserts him.
But all the irrationality of art, its dazzling turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its shattering influence on human beings — they are too full of magic to be exhausted by this artist's vision of the world, by his artistic conception or by the work of his unworthy fingers.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nobel lecture (1970)

“If one looks far into the future, one can foresee in the 21st century such a time when the U.S. together with Europe will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.”

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn